Spiffy:

Iffy:

Eidos stopped by the other day to show off a new level of the upcoming Tomb Raider Underworld, as well as a handful of new gadgetry for star heroine Lara Croft. While the focus of Underworld seems largely geared towards providing Lara with some handy new moves and even handier new equipment to satisfy long-time fans of the series, there are also some new features aimed at getting newcomers into the game quickly. The underlying puzzle-solving plus platform-jumping play mechanics still apply, but this time out Lara's new gymnastic tricks make her even more closely resembles a capricious spider monkey than before. All of these new features seem to point at a freer and more adventurous Lara than has appeared in past games.

WCLD

Cheesy though it may sound, developer Crystal Dynamics has created a new mantra to help guide the design of the first Tomb Raider game developed from the ground up for HD consoles. That mantra is "what could Lara do?" and the idea is that she should be capable of doing everything that you would expect her to do given her rarified skill set, from using poles as weapons to balancing on traditionally swing-only bars. In practice, this appears to give Lara some unique new tools for solving puzzles tuned to interact with her new abilities.

The demo began at a point roughly ten minutes into Tomb Raider Underworld, after Lara had been given the coordinates for yet another tomb ripe for raiding by one of her friends (or, more specifically, her friend's treasure-seeking father's estate). Of course, she immediately discovers why her friend's dad hasn't gone chasing after the precious relics himself, as the location is actually submerged beneath the Mediterranean Sea. Ordinarily, this would present some problems, but the newly-capable Underworld Lara has a special trick up her sleeve: SCUBA gear. Lara no longer has to seek out oxygen from air vents or overhead cavern pockets because she carries a tank full of the stuff strapped to her back (though swim fins were noticeably absent from her feet).

Outfitted with her new self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, Lara can descend into the depths among wavering shafts of light that penetrate the shifting surface of the ocean all the way down to a kelp-encrusted ancient temple. Her entry to this underwater fortress is of course blocked by a devious puzzle and so Lara is left to pick through the surrounding undersea paradise for rogue rods that can be inserted into what appear to be a waterlogged Venn diagram.

Under more traditional circumstances, seeking out these wayward puzzle pieces would involve a comprehensive search of the local environment, but Lara has a new device to help her get a better lay of the land. The Sonar Map sends out sound waves which are reflected off of solid surfaces to build a 3D picture of the environment within her line of sight; this is the first appearance of a 3D map in any of Croft's adventures. A quick peek at the Sonar Map indicated an entrance to a cave obscured by wafting seaweed within which Lara could find the last rod necessary to solve the puzzle.

For those unfamiliar with Lara's usual modus operandi for puzzle busting, a new hint system has been added that provides two levels of suggestions. If you're just hung up on what to do next, you can opt to get a hint to direct you in your search, but if you really want to cheap out and skip the puzzle altogether, a complete solution of the puzzle can be displayed. Using these hints will likely have an impact on the acquisition of treasured achievement points (or trophies on PS3), so there is a price to pay for this extra intel.